“Pogy was pinging something. They got a return, bearing one-nine-one, about,” Chief Laval said. “There’s another sub out there. I don’t know what. I can read some plant and steam noises, but not enough for a signature.”
“The boomer’s still movin’, sir,” Chief Palmer reported.
“Skipper,” Reynolds looked up from the paper tracks, “her course takes her between us and the target.”
“Terrific. All ahead one-third, left twenty degrees rudder.” Wood moved to the sonar room while his orders were carried out. “Chief, power up and stand by to ping the boomer hard.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Palmer worked his controls. “Ready, sir.”
“Hit him straight on. I don’t want him to miss this time.”
Wood watched the heading indicator on the sonar plot swing. The Pogy was turning rapidly, but not rapidly enough to suit him. The Red October—only he and Reynolds knew that she was Russian, though the crew was speculating like mad — was coming in too fast.
“Ready, sir.”
“Hit it.”
Palmer punched the impulse control.
Ping ping ping ping ping!
“Skipper,” Jones yelled. “Danger signal!”
Mancuso jumped to the annunciator without waiting for Ramius to react. He twisted the dial to All Stop. When this was done he looked at Ramius. “Sorry, sir.”
“All right.” Ramius scowled at the chart. The phone buzzed a moment later. He took it and spoke in Russian for several seconds before hanging up. “I told them that we have a problem but we do not know what it is.”
“True enough.” Mancuso joined Ramius at the chart. Engine noises were diminishing, though not quickly enough to suit the American. The October was quiet for a Russian sub, but this was still too noisy for him.
“See if your sonarman can locate anything,” Ramius suggested.
“Right.” Mancuso took a few steps aft. “Jonesy, find what’s out there.”
“Aye, Skipper, but it won’t be easy on this gear.” He already had the sensor arrays working in the direction of the two escorting attack subs. Jones adjusted the fit of his headphones and started working on the amplifier controls. No signal processors, no SAPS, and the transducers weren’t worth a damn! But this wasn’t the time to get excited. The Soviet systems had to be manipulated electromechanically, unlike the computer-controlled ones he was used to. Slowly and carefully, he altered the directional receptor gangs in the sonar dome forward, his right hand twirling a cigarette pack, his eyes shut tight. He didn’t notice Bugayev sitting next to him, listening to the same input.
The Dallas
“What do we know, Chief?” Chambers asked.
“I got a bearing and nothing else. Pogy’s got him all dialed in, but our friend powered back his engine right after he got lashed, and he faded out on me. Pogy got a big return off him. He’s probably pretty close, sir.”
Chambers had only moved up to his executive officer’s posting four months earlier. He was a bright, experienced officer and a likely candidate for his own command, but he was only thirty-three years old and had only been back in submarines for those four months. The year and a half prior to that he’d been a reactor instructor in Idaho. The gruffness that was part of his job as Mancuso’s principal on-board disciplinarian also shielded more insecurity than he would have cared to admit. Now his career was on the line. He knew exactly how important this mission was. His future would ride on the decisions he was about to make.
“Can you localize with one ping?”
The sonar chief considered this for a second. “Not enough for a shooting solution, but it’ll give us something.”
“One ping, do it.”
“Aye.” Laval worked on his board briefly, triggering the active elements.
Tupolev winced. He had acted too soon. He should have waited until they were past — but then if he had waited that long, he would have had to move, and now he had all three of them hovering nearby, almost still.
The four submarines were moving only fast enough for depth control. The Russian Alfa was pointed southeast, and all four were arrayed in a roughly trapezoidal fashion, open end seaward. The Pogy and the Dallas were to the north of the Konovalov, the Red October was southeast of her.
“Somebody just pinged her,” Jones said quietly. “Bearing is roughly northwest, but she isn’t making enough noise for us to read her. Sir, if I had to make a bet, I’d say she was pretty close.”
“How do you know that?” Mancuso asked.
“I heard the pulse direct — just one ping to get a range, I think. It was from a BQQ-5. Then we heard the echo off the target. The math works out a couple of different ways, but smart money is he’s between us and our guys, and a little west. I know it’s shaky, sir, but it’s the best we got.”
“Range ten kilometers, perhaps less,” Bugayev commented.
“That’s kinda shaky, too, but it’s as good a starting place as any. Not a whole lot of data. Sorry, Skipper. Best we can do,” Jones said.
Mancuso nodded and returned to control.
“What gives?” Ryan asked. The plane controls were pushed all the way forward to maintain depth. He had not grasped the significance of what was going on.
“There’s a hostile submarine out there.”
“What information do we have?” Ramius asked.
“Not much. There’s a contact northwest, range unknown, but probably not very far. I know for sure it’s not one of ours. Norfolk said this area was cleared. That leaves one possibility. We drift?”
“We drift,” Ramius echoed, lifting the phone. He spoke a few orders.
The October’s engines were providing the power to move the submarine at a fraction over two knots, barely enough to maintain steerage way and not enough to maintain depth. With her slight positive buoyancy, the October was drifting upward a few feet per minute despite the plane setting.
“Let’s move back south. I don’t like the idea of having that Alfa closer to our friend than we are. Come right to one-eight-five, two-thirds,” Chambers said finally.
“Aye aye,” Goodman said. “Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder, come to new course one-eight-five. All ahead two thirds.”
“Right fifteen degrees rudder, aye.” The helmsman turned the wheel. “Sir, my rudder is right fifteen degrees, coming to new course one-eight-five.”
The Dallas’ four torpedo tubes were loaded with three Mark 48s and a decoy, an expensive MOSS (mobile submarine simulator). One of her torpedoes was targeted on the Alfa, but the firing solution was vague. The “fish” would have to do some of the tracking by itself. The Pogy’s two torpedoes were almost perfectly dialed in.
The problem was that neither boat had authority to shoot. Both attack submarines were operating under the normal rules of engagement. They could fire in self-defense only and defend the Red October only by bluff and guile. The question was whether the Alfa knew what the Red October was.
“Steer for the Ohio,” Tupolev ordered. “Bring speed to three knots. We must be patient, comrades. Now that the Americans know where we are they will not ping us again. We will move from our place quietly.”